Midnight Occult Civil Servants Episode 6 Review: Devil and Sense of Loss

After last week’s slower episode, Midnight Occult Civil Servants turns up the stakes in Episode 6, ‘Devil and Sense of Loss’. When the Another hijinks hit close to home, Arata and the rest of the Nocturnal Division members must face their toughest case yet!

Original Japanese Title: 悪魔と喪失感

Plot

A team finally gets a break in their ongoing missing person’s case, when one of the victims wakes up and provides a lead to the actual culprit. Sakaki realizes that his missing sister might be connected to the case and enlists Arata’s help in talking with Kohaku, who he suspects may have a hand in the kidnappings. But, before they can talk with him, Arata’s childhood friend is snatched from right under his nose by a demon and whisked off to hell. At a loss for what to do, Arata makes a desperate plea to Kohaku for help… but, will the trickster god lend a hand or just make things worse?

Episode Highlights

Kohaku the turncoat: Kohaku is the trickster god Huehuecóyotl, so I expected him to have a shaky moral compass, but, this week we see him full on working with the ‘bad guy’. Whether that means he’s a turncoat or just playing a prank has yet to be seen, but he did set Arata’s childhood friend up to be kidnapped, so he must have some kind of agenda…

Sakaki’s sister and backstory: After last week’s of hinting and teasing, we finally get some insight into Sakaki’s past. After his parents died he and his older sister went to live at an orphanage. One day 17 years ago his sister was kidnapped by an unnamed demon, shortly after Sakaki became a host to make ends meet and was approached by Senda to join the Nocturnal Division.

Themes and Trivia

Kagurazaka Matsuri: Is an annual summer festival, typically held in July. The first day consists of the Hozu-ki Market where patrons can buy Hozu-ki (red lamp-like plants) the seeds of which are used as offerings during the Obon Festival. The second day of the festival is dedicated to the Awaodori dance performances.

Awaodori Dance: YouTube

Comments

Finally, something consistent!! After dropping all these breadcrumbs in Episodes 1-5 we finally make some headway on this missing persons case Sakaki has been brooding over for so long. Episode 6 ‘Devil and a Sense of Loss’ goes a long way in bringing together quite a few of the series’s loose threads. We learn a bit about Sakaki’s past and it’s FINALLY revealed that his older sister was one of the victims of the demon that is kidnapping women. The show has been dropping a lot of hints, but, I was convinced that it was an old flame that was snatched, however, I think I like the sister angle a lot better.

Also, way to kick a guy while he’s down, Just last week Arata learns you can’t always reason with Anothers and then this week his childhood friend gets snatched right from under his nose and he is helpless to save her. It’s enough to send any shounen protagonist into a rampage, but instead Arata handles things rather reasonably, first calling his supervisors and then demanding that Kohaku help him find her.

I never really trusted Kohaku all that much to begin with but, until this episode he seemed relatively harmless. Now, I don’t know what he really wants. Is he just there to mess with Arata or does he have a more sinister agenda?

Finally Some Conflict!

Episode 6 ‘Devil and the Sense of Loss’ gives a pretty nice payoff to a lot of the series’s earlier foreshadowing, finally giving us a sense of conflict for the characters to overcome. The cliffhanger at the end of the episode was killer and I can’t wait to see how Arata and the rest of the team get out of this mess…

Don’t forget to check the rest of our Spring 2019 reviews. Midnight Occult Civil Servants is also part of our weekly anime previews.